DNB Bank ASA (DNB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

All right. Welcome to all of you to -- in this pre-call for the second quarter. I just want to remind you the objective of this call is to remind you of what we have said about the market and all our guiding and so forth that could affect the Q2 results. We will also share some of the market data, which could also affect the second quarter. I will start with the NII and also the capital, and then [indiscernible] will take you through the rest of the P&L. When it comes to the NII, first of all, I want to remind you that Sbanken consolidation will be 100% in the full effect also on the P&L in this quarter. So for the NII, for example, the NII for Sbanken in the first quarter was NOK 377 million, just to give you an idea. When it comes to rate days, there will be one more day of interest rates in Q2 compared to Q1, which will have an approximately effect of NOK 90 million. On the margin side and effects from the rate hikes, I'll just remind you that we will have an effect from the second rate hike, which we say have an annual effect of NOK 1.5 billion. We saw an effect from the second rate hike, 2/3 effect from this rate hike in the first quarter, and we will see an additional 1/3 effect from this rate hike in Q2. There will also be an effect from the third rate hike, which we expect to have an annual effect of approximately NOK 1.2 billion. This will have an effect from the 13th of May. On the volume side, we, of course, still have the ambitions of -- the long-term ambitions of growing 3% to 4% annual on the credit volume. We have seen in the housing market that in April, there was a decrease on the number of houses sold of 19% compared to last year. But in May, we saw actually an increase of 0.9% compared to the number of houses sold in 2021 -- in May 2021. In the corporate segment, we continue to see a high level of activity in the demand for bank loans. Over to capital. In Q1, the CET1 ratio for DNB was 18.1% compared to the FSA expectations of 16.4%. In June, the countercyclical buffer requirement will increase by 50 basis points to 1.5%, and the maximum countercyclical buffer of 2.5% is expected in March 2023. And this will give FSA expectations of 17.7% at that time. We have seen a weakening of the NOK over the quarter, which will have a negative effect. And I'll remind you of the sensitivity, which is a change of -- or a weakening of the Norwegian kroner of 10% will have a negative effect on the CET ratio of approximately 20 basis points. And as I said, we continue to see a high activity level in the corporate segment, which, of course, also have a higher risk weight. Also, when it comes to the effects from implementation of the CRR II/CRD V, we have said that, that will have a very limited positive effect for us, and that will have effect from June. Dividend policy is, of course, unchanged. And by that, I will give the word to [indiscernible]

Yes. Sure. Moving on to commission and fees. Investment banking services, of course, sees a lower activity level in ECM and DCM this quarter due to the market uncertainty or unrest that we're experiencing. Real estate brokerage, as Rune mentioned, has seen a lower number of objects being sold in the market year-to-date than we saw last year, most likely due implementation of a new disposal act introduced January 1 with more stringent documentation requirements for home sellers. On the asset management side, the volatile capital markets negatively affect AUM and net flow development quarter-to-date. And on the money transfer side, really nothing new. Domestic transactions are at a normalized level. International traveling is still below prepandemic levels, and we do expect this to pick up throughout the year and, of course, also now during summer. We have stated previously that we do not expect corporate traveling to return fully to prepandemic levels. With regards to the table titled net gains on financial instruments at fair value in our factbook, on customer revenues in DNB markets or FICC, we see a good activity level quarter-to-date, and the MTM effects on the AT1 and the basis swaps will be released shortly after quarter end. As a reminder, the outstanding AT1 is now USD 850 million. Moving on to costs. Q2 typically sees a higher activity level than, for example, the first quarter, which generally leads to higher costs. Market expectations to salary inflation in Norway has come up somewhat lately to close to 4%. And as we've stated previously, we expect to come in somewhat higher than the general Norwegian level due to the composition of our staff. And we continue to ensure that we don't underinvest in critical areas such as compliance and technology. A reminder of -- on pension expenses, the normalized level for pension expenses is just below NOK 400 million per quarter, and the compensation scheme is linked primarily to global equities. And we see no remaining positive effects from COVID on our cost base. Moving on to impairments and asset quality. We're still generally comfortable with the quality in our portfolio. We have very limited, if any, exposure -- direct exposure to Russia and Ukraine and limited indirect exposure through our loan book. We do no commodities trading on our own book, and we're generally not concerned with the commodities exposures of our customers. Accumulated stage 1 and 2 impairments are and have been for some time back -- been back at prepandemic levels. So you should be careful to expect material reversals in stages 1 and 2. And again, a general reminder that impairments will, of course, vary from quarter-to-quarter, driven by both reversals and company-specific impairments. And finally, a kind request to please submit your pre-consensus by close of business on June 27. I think that was all the messages that we have prepared.

Yes. So thank you very much for participating, and have a nice rest of the day.

Thank you.

Thank you.